If there is one thing relatively certain about Tuesday’s verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, it’s that many people will overreact to it. It certainly seems right that Chauvin was convicted on all three counts arising from the death of George Floyd last year. But saying it is some sort of turning point in our …
If there is one thing I would love to change about my childhood — and there are certainly many things — I wish I had been more interested in other people. I was probably at least a few steps on the good side of sociopathy, which is not a term I throw around lightly, I …
“There’s plenty good money to be made, supplyin’ the army with the tools of the trade …” When Country Joe McDonald, who may or may not have ever had a farm, first recorded “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die” in 1965, the song had nothing to do with Afghanistan. We might have been crazy …
Quite a few Democrats have been complaining about Senators Joe Manchin and Kyisten Sinema for their refusal to go along with eliminating the filibuster. They say the two senators might as well admit they’re Republicans and switch over. I have just one thing to say to these people. “Are you insane?” If either the senator …
Fifty years ago, I went through a poetry phase. Not a good poetry phase, although there were a few I liked. They were maybe step above “roses are red,” and half a step above “moon, June, croon.” Mostly they were anguished rhymes after my first two real relationships collapsed, on at the end of summer …
Again? We haven’t even finished the trial of the man who killed George Floyd, and another black man died at the hands of a police officer just 11 miles away. This one seems a little different. There’s at least a possibility that Daunte Wright’s death was an accident of sorts, but the result is the …
Nearly 20 years ago, I had one of the most satisfying achievements in my life. It had nothing to do with writing or my career and it had nothing to do with making money. It was something many people wouldn’t think was anything special, but for me it was trying something I had never tried …
The summer that I was 14, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, beating a much tougher filibuster than still exists. You needed 67 votes in those days to invoke cloture. and President Johnson worked with Senate Republican leader Everette Dirksen and Democrat Hubert Humphrey to shut down the Dixiecrats. It’s sort of ironic that I …
So much of life is about timing, particularly in the case of personal relationships. When my first wife and I separated in January 1980, I had no idea it would be nearly 13 years before I remarried. I actually met someone very special and started dating her less than a month after moving out. We …
Sorry. If you have become a faithful follower of this site, you have no doubt noticed there hasn’t been a new post in more than a week. My lovely wife and I don’t travel much anymore, but for the last week or so, we were back in my old stomping grounds. I wonder why they …
